Keith Gooden
Welcome to the Motorhome Matt podcast with me, Keith Gooden. I ask the stupid questions…
Matt Sims
And Motorhome Matt tries to answer them.
Keith Gooden
And he does so successfully. Thanks for joining us. It’s brought to you with www.thatleisureshop.com.
Keith Gooden
First of all, let’s talk about the shop. Matt, what do you recommend for our season ahead?
Matt Sims
Well, it’s definitely worth making sure you’ve got all the chemicals you need and the gas you need for this summer season. Make sure you’ve got the toilet chemical you need, whatever you’re using. You can get that at www.thatleisureshop.com. All of that cleaning stuff as well, outside, inside, specialist chemical. We’ve got it all!
The weight of electric cars in car parks
Keith Gooden
Let’s delve into the news then, shall we? Let’s talk about a very interesting news story which appeared in the press about the weight of electric vehicles and how it could compromise multi-storey car parks.
Matt Sims
They’re all going to collapse and we’re all going to die, apparently, under the weight of the cars.
Keith Gooden
That’s not quite what Chris Whapples, who is a car park and structural consultant, told the newspapers. He said way back when the Cortina would weigh 1,300 kilogrammes. And now a Tesla EV is twice that weight. So he is saying that actually, if you’ve got a full car park with electric cars, maybe the structure of some of our older multi-storeys could be called into question.
Matt Sims
Maybe. I mean, the weight of the car park is significant on its own without any cars in it. I mean, it’s a factor. It was countered, though, wasn’t it, with a number of things online and number of stories online where people were saying, “Well, sure. A big EV is heavier than a Ford Cortina. But actually, all cars are heavier than they used to be.” We’ve got a 1934 Austin Seven, and it weighs hardly anything. It’s a tiny little car.
New cars are much bigger, but they are getting smaller and smaller, particularly for those cities where parking is restricted. So all cars are getting heavier. But yeah, I think if you compare a Ford Cortina, which is actually a very small car… I mean, there are people listening who don’t know what that is. There are people in this room who don’t know what that is. It was a very small but very standard family car. The equivalent now is probably a Fiesta, but that’s heavier than a Ford Cortina. It’s probably smaller.
Keith Gooden
Well, Chris Whapples has flagged it up. Let’s hope people pay attention. I know very close to us here, one of the multi-storeys in Bath was demolished because it was just old, and things like concrete cancer and all the rest of it take its toll.
Matt Sims
Yeah, yeah, that’s right. I mean, councils don’t want cars in the cities anyway, so they’re surely going to start pulling them down anyway. So out of city car parks are going to be the way forward, aren’t they, big park and rides. New developments for car parking. But I don’t think we’re going to see new inner city car parks being built.
Scams to look for when buying a motorhome
Keith Gooden
It’s the Motorhome Matt podcast brought to you with www.thatleisuresho.com. Let’s talk about the main part of this podcast, shall we? First time buyer pitfalls – we have covered this a little in the past, Matt. So what have you got to add to it?
Matt Sims
Well, we wanted to focus on some of the buying scams that go on, because they are a reality. It happened to us this week. We have a separate business called Burrington Horseboxes, and we sell vans that are converted to little horse boxes, three and a half tonnes. Somebody emailed us late in the evening and said, “Can you confirm that these are your details?” And they were buying a horse trailer on Facebook marketplace.
The seller sent them an invoice with our name on. It said Burrington Horseboxes and a random name and a random bank account – nothing to do with us at all. And they basically duped us, and they were trying to con this buyer out of nearly £3,000. Thankfully for the buyer, they saw the light and exercised some diligence and emailed us and said, “Can you confirm these are your bank details?” And I said, “Absolutely not. We’re not selling this.”
And I have to say, the advert looked really genuine. I could see nothing wrong with the advert at all. I then reported the advert and so did they, but it’s so easy to be scammed. Jude, my other half, said, “Why would you buy a horse box or anything like that and not go and see it?” Well, we’ve actually just bought a trailer, a big tower van type of trailer, a big box on wheels for going to all the shows with the shop. I didn’t go and see it. I sent the man £200 pounds to secure it. And then we went into London to go and view it and pay them the rest.
But I said, “Well, we’ve just done exactly that.” Okay, only with £200. We had a phone call as well to try and make sure each other were genuine, but it’s so easy to be scammed. When it comes to motorhomes, this has been very commonplace and very prolific, where people are scamming people.
And the pitfalls of buying a motorhome online – not choosing the right one for you. We’ve covered that in the past at length, and you can go and listen to those episodes. I think it’s called Choosing the Right Motorhome or You. And we’ve covered buying from a dealer or buying private, and which one is best or better. So this is more about the scams online.
Keith Gooden
I was stopped in the street the other day, and a bloke said, “I’ve got some half price sandwiches here.” I bought one. I got it home and opened it up. There was nothing in it. It was a scam sandwich. There you go. You see, this is what you’re not paying for.
Matt Sims
Ring the bell.
Keith Gooden
Now remember, where these scams, cheats, and all the rest of it, the reason they’re doing it is because they have to put the same amount of effort in to get your £3,000 or your £10,000 as they do to get your £200. So actually, it’s very profitable for these criminals, because that is what they are, to misrepresent themselves and other businesses and cheat customers. So I suppose it’s buyer beware. Caveat emptor. You’ve just really got to be on your guard. You’ve got to be wary. If it’s too good to be true, that deal is probably a scam.
Matt Sims
Yeah. And if your gut says there’s something not right here, trust it. And just slow down. Just don’t go launching into it. This guy did. He was literally about send the money, and thought, “Hang on, I’m just going to contact this company and just check this is real.” And thankfully, he avoided losing £3,000.
Keith Gooden
Yeah, because the bank won’t pay you if you’ve voluntarily paid that £3,000 out to a crook.
Matt Sims
It was a BACS payment he was about to make, so no, he wouldn’t have got it back.
Keith Gooden
You’re not going to get that back.
Service history and habitation checks
Matt Sims
Always be careful, and trust your gut. Go and see it in person. For some reason he hadn’t gone to see this trailer. But I would recommend it, if you can. I know I didn’t when I sent this chap £200, but our conversation was on the telephone. And he actually sent me a video of him walking around it. He showed me something with the date on so I could see it was genuine. And he was a genuine seller. And I wanted him to know I was a genuine buyer as well.
So go in person, and go and see it or send someone else if you can’t. Try and get somebody else to go and inspect it. With a motorhome I’d recommend, though, aside all the online scamming bit, just check its habitation history. That’s so important.
If you can’t go and see it, send an engineer to go and look at it. For £100 or £200, you could end up not losing £20,000 plus. So I would definitely send an engineer to go and look at it. And if the if the seller isn’t genuine, they will say no.
Keith Gooden
They haven’t got the thing they’re advertising in the first place. They’ve just got a photograph of it.
Matt Sims
That’s right.
Keith Gooden
So the whole thing is a cheat. So you’re right. If you say, “I want to send somebody along just have a look and do a check,” of course they’re gonna say no, because they’re crooks.
Matt Sims
Yeah, that’s right. So they just want an easy win. So they want people that can’t come, won’t come and just want to give them money. Don’t be that victim. So send someone to go into a hab check if you can’t do it. If you can’t go and see it, then get someone else to go.
Even if you can go and see it, I would still make sure it has a habitation check if you’re buying it privately, or at the bare minimum a damp check. This is so important. There are so many motorhomes at the moment for sale that are there because nobody else wants to buy them and they can’t be sold anywhere else. They’ve either come out of an auction.,, I can see several online at the moment as we are recording.
This morning I was on eBay having a look and on Facebook Marketplace and I know there are motorhomes there that have been through an auction and not sold because they are basically mobile goldfish bowls. They are rotten. And that’s why they’re on eBay. Not all of them are terrible, but some are.
Keith Gooden
We must say this is not eBay’s or Facebook Marketplace’s fault. They are open to anybody. You have got to check yourself. It’s not up to them. eBay has already asked them questions and has done some checks, as has Facebook. And to the best of their knowledge, these people are honest. But crooks are crooks. And they’re very sophisticated and they will find a way through. So no criticism of these auction sites.
Matt Sims
It’s not their fault, is it? They’re just the platform. But definitely go and check the habitation service history. If it doesn’t have one, I’d be very cautious. And I would definitely be getting a habitation check done. We’ve had people ask us about this before. And yes, it will slow down your purchase. But there could well be a dark reason why it hasn’t had a habitation check presented to you, or why it hasn’t had a damp check recently. So definitely please go and get one of those done.
Keith Gooden
And they’ll come out with all the excuses. I’ve got to sell it quickly, my mother’s dying, or I’ve got to rush off here and do this. I need the money quickly, we don’t really have time. They will try anything to get their hands on your money. As Matt says, you dictate the pace.
Checking the V5
Matt Sims
The other thing to look at is the V5. So we’re often told to look at the address on the V5 and check if that is the address you’re viewing the vehicle. Now, a V5 is not proof of ownership. The new V5s state this very clearly across the front of them. We invest a lot of authority in this document. I think it’s a pointless document, but it’s one that carries value, particularly as it still exists. The sooner it all goes online, the better. I think it’d be less open to fraud.
But check the V5 – is the address the same? If it’s not, why not? Now, we have motorhomes here on our hire fleet at Motorhome Holiday Company that are registered to my home address. Now, the reason we do that is if somebody drives down a bus lane or extends their stay in a car park and doesn’t pay, the fine goes straight to my house and I know it will get opened and looked at straightaway. It won’t disappear into a pile of post in the office and sit on someone else’s desk for a week. We can deal with it straight away. That’s why we do it.
So we change the address to my home deliberately, but we won’t necessarily be looking at the motorhome at my house. So we explain this to people and they accept it. And if they want to come to my house, they can. They can come in have a cup of tea. But check the V5. Does it exist?
If a V5 isn’t present, you are potentially in for a headache trying to get one. We took a load of motorhomes off a motorhome hire business a few years ago during lockdown that gone bust, and lots of them didn’t have a V5. It took about six or seven months to fix that – it was a nightmare – before the administrator could do anything with them. And also check the service history.
As I said, with the habitation check, that’s one side. But the engine and chassis service history – if it doesn’t have any evidence at all, that raises a red flag. Why not? Has it ever been serviced? It’s hard to know. You can go and check the MOT history of a vehicle online. That’s easily done.
Just Google, “Check MOT history,” type the number it in and every MOT test it’s ever had his online. And it will show you what it failed on as well and the advisories so you can track the history of a vehicle through its MOT history completely free. Just go on the .gov website and do that.
Mileage and condition
Matt Sims
Other people have said in the past, “It’s five years old. It’s only done 5,000 miles. It must be a good buy.” Yeah, but someone lived in it for five years. So what’s the interior condition like? If it’s really, really tired, you need to think about the water pump and the boiler. All those appliances have been working really hard during that time. It’s only done 5,000 miles.
Actually, for me, that’s a reason not to buy it even if it’s not been lived in. I would be very cautious about buying an extremely low mileage motorhome. We perceive that as really good. Not necessarily. Bear in mind. These vehicles are built as delivery vans. They’re designed to do 40,000, 50,000 or more miles a year. With regular service intervals, they will do that.
Being driven 1,000 miles a year is not good for them. The diesel particulate filter gets blocked. The EGR valve, the exhaust gas release valve, can seize up. There are lots of issues that can occur through it not being driven.
Keith Gooden
What sort of mileage should people be looking at as a reasonable one when they’re buying their motorhome?
Matt Sims
I mean, as I say, it’s a delivery van underneath. So if he’s got 100,000 miles on, that’s a lot of miles for a motorhome, even a 20-year-old one. So has it been serviced? There’s a great example of a friend of mine’s given me. He’s in the car sales game and he had two BMWs for sale, both three series BMWs. One had an immaculate service history and was rusty and pretty tired to look at. The other was immaculate, really shiny, beautiful interior and no service history at all. Both are similar age. Which one do you think he sold?
Keith Gooden
The second one.
Matt Sims
Of course he did. No one was interested in the first one. He really struggled to sell it, yet that’s the better car. £1,000 pounds on a trip to a body shop, and all that bodywork can be fixed. And we overlook that and we fall foul of the shiny penny syndrome. “It looks fantastic. It has no service history – oh, it’ll be all right.” Will it? It might be, but just be super cautious. Always go for the one with history over the one that’s really shiny and has none at all.
Keith Gooden
And the buyer is trying to push you, saying, “I’ve got five other people looking, but you’re first in the queue. I’ll sell to you if we can do the deal this afternoon.” Don’t be fooled.
Matt Sims
Don’t be fooled. No, no, that I remember a dealer friend of mine, a motorhome dealer, offered someone a deal and it was significant deal that day. And the guy said, “I’m going to go home and think about it.” Really? He came in the next day and said, “I’d like to do it.” He said, “Well, that was yesterday. It’s a new day today. It’s back to the old price today.” He wouldn’t budge. I don’t know if the guy bought it.
Keith Gooden
I wouldn’t have done.
HPI checks
Matt Sims
The other thing I’d recommend is an HPI check. This is really important. They’re about £20 to do. It will tell you whether a vehicle has ever been stolen, written off, whether it has outstanding finance on it – I’ll come back to that – how many previous owners it has had, if it has ever been scrapped and it will tell you about its MOT history as well. It will also tell you the date of the last change of keeper.
So that can be useful to know, because if it’s only been owned for four months, why? Why have they owned it for such a short space of time, and now they’re selling it? And did you know that HPI uncover a dark history or hidden history in one in three vehicles they check? So some kind of red flag. Now, that could just be it had a private number plate once upon a time. There’s nothing to worry about there. But one in three checks flag something.
Keith Gooden
That’s incredible. And you can find all that out for £20?
Matt Sims
www.hpicheck.co.uk I think it is, yeah. Just Google HPI check. It’s a really, really cost effective service. We HPI everything we sell as part of our account with Auto Trader, actually, and we have a whole load of checks that we are able to carry out on a vehicle. This is on the chassis side, obviously. It won’t check the habitation side, only the MOT history of a vehicle. So the service history is not captured anywhere online unless you can access a manufacturer’s service history.
We can access Adria service histories, for example. We’re an Andrea warranty partner in the business here and service partners, so we can look at the service history and warranty claims on an Adria vehicle as an Adria dealer can. So it’s definitely worth owning a dealer of that motorhome manufacturer and asking them if they would check it for you. I’m sure they would- it might cost you a case of something, you know, chocolate or beer. But it’s definitely worth asking a dealer if they would do that for you. I’m sure many would.
Buying from private sellers vs dealers
Keith Gooden
It’s the Motorhome Matt podcast brought to you with www.thatleisureshop.com. And we’re talking about the first time buyer pitfalls, and being scammed – pushed into doing a deal you’re not absolutely comfortable with but is too good to be true. And as we said earlier, it probably is. Let’s go back to finance, shall we? But before we do that, we did have an episode about buying privately versus dealer, didn’t we? So it’s in our library of podcasts, and perhaps you should listen to that one as well if you’re in the market.
Matt Sims
We spoke to two local dealers, JMT Leisure, who are up the road from us here in North Somerset, and our friends at Chelston down in Somerset. Both of the owners gave us a view on – obviously they’re biased to buying from a dealer! They are dealers -but why they felt that buying from a dealer was a better route. And for some people it is. It’s not for everyone. Some people will buy privately and have a great experience.
If you’ve never done this before, I would suggest you consider buying from a dealership. Yes, you might pay a little bit more. But in recent years, private sellers are commanding the same money as a dealer. You’ve got all the recourse, of course, buying from a dealer. So I would definitely consider if you’ve never done this and you know nothing about motorhomes going in and relying on a dealer.
Yes, there are some bad ones out there. And you can find those by Googling them and searching up reviews. And I suggest you do that. But go and check out that whole episode. It’s really useful.
Keith Gooden
We’ve got another episode, haven’t we, one on Creative Funding Solutions?
Matt Sims
Yes. So we were talking about motorhome finance and how that works. And Steve from Creative joined us on that. That’s a really good episode if you want to understand how motorhome finance works, because it’s different to car finance, very slightly. More favourable, I’d say. But if you’re buying a motorhome privately and it’s got finance on it, then you shouldn’t dismiss it. You need to know it’s got finance on it.
Because if you go giving the owner the £40,000 they’re asking for and it’s still got £28,000 of finance on it, the finance company own that vehicle, and they can come and claim it from you. They’ll just take it off you. You’ve lost that money – you will not get that back. So the importance of an HPI check is so acute here. It will tell you that there’s finance and then you can go and liaise directly with the finance company on paying that finance down and paying it off and then any balance giving to the seller.
So in terms of dealing with a private seller who’s got finance, that’s perfectly reasonable. They would be able to request a settlement figure and then you could contact the finance company and pay them direct. It probably would take about a week, though, for that imprint on the vehicle that it’s got finance on to disappear, but they will confirm that you’ve paid them within normally a few hours or maybe a few days. And then the balance you give to the seller.
New hydrogen-powered motorhome concept
Keith Gooden
It’s the Motorhome Matt podcast brought to you with www.thatleisureshop.com. What’s this about a hydrogen motorhome, Matt?
Matt Sims
So this story made me laugh. This was on www.outandaboutlive.co.uk. They’ve posted a story that a hydrogen campervan concept has been introduced. Well, it’s a drawing. So there’s a company called First Hydrogen. I’m just looking at it here on my phone. They’re based between London and Vancouver, and they’re exploring a hydrogen powered van. And so they’ve drawn a very funky looking campervan, which apparently is going to be hydrogen powered. But it seems like we’re peaking a bit early with this story.
Keith Gooden
Sounds like it. I’ve done my own concept. Is it possible to zoom in? Here’s Keith’s concept here. I’ve got a nightclub in the bottom floor of my concept motorhome and a block of flats above. So it’s not very far to stagger home. But it’s a concept.
Matt Sims
It must be real, then.
Keith Gooden
It must be true.
Matt Sims
It’s coming. Where can I buy one?
Keith Gooden
And mine is fueled with good wishes and sausage rolls.
Matt Sims
And fairy dust. No doubt hydrogen is going to feature one day. It feels like it’s even longer away than EVs at the moment.
Keith Gooden
It does, and there’s nowhere to pump your hydrogen either. Is that what petrol stations are going to become, do you think?
Matt Sims
Maybe. E-fuels as well as synthetic fuel. Formula One are all over that. So yeah, it’s interesting topic. We’ll keep on exploring and unpacking this. Don’t worry. We’ve got some fantastic experts coming on the podcast. And they really start to dispel a few myths. There’s a phrase called a FUD. Do you know what a FUD is?
Keith Gooden
I do not know what a FUD is. Is it the sound I make when I fall out of bed?
Matt Sims
It’s the fear of unknown and doubt. And I think there’s a lot of FUD around this topic with changes being forced upon us. And it’s that fear of unknown and doubt that’s creating all these concerns and these pub conversations. So we’re starting to unpack more and more on this whole topic of EV. So stay tuned.
Keith Gooden
Yes, do. Now, we hope that we’ve cleared up some of the issues you might have if you’re a first time buyer, some of the pitfalls you might come across. Number one, don’t be scammed into making a quick decision and transferring your hard earned into somebody else’s account and finding out that you’ve not even got a drawing of Keith’s concept car yet before you find out that you have been scammed. Do your HPI check. For £20 you can find out a whole lot about that motorhome or caravan that you’re going to be buying. Is it for motorhomes and caravans?
Matt Sims
Well, that’s a good point, actually. On a caravan you can contact the CRiS, so the Caravan Registration Service, CRiS, and often a caravan, you’ll note, has the indelible ink in the windows, a whole load of numbers. And that’s its CRiS number. And that’s like a V5 for a caravan.
It’s an opt-in service, so not every caravan is part of the CRiS scheme. But CRiS will tell you whether that caravan has ever been reported stolen or written off. And again, there’s a small fee. I think it’s about £20. And you can contact CRiS and give them the number etched in the window, and they will tell you a bit more about the caravan.
Audience Q&A
Colin: “Getting Wi-Fi on the road?”
Keith Gooden
Okay, then. I hope that’s helped you. Let’s do our audience questions and answers – my favourite part of every podcast! Colin Coulthard’s in Harrow. He says, “I’m looking at Wi-Fi for the motorhome and remembered you said you had a good deal you used at the NEC.” That is the big shows in February and in October for motorhomes and caravans and such like. “Would this be any good on the road?”
Matt Sims
Absolutely. Yeah, we’ve been trialling a little 4G router from Falcon. They’re £195. We’ve got them in the shop at www.thatleisureshop.com, and they’re a little plastic box with two great big aerials on. They connect with a SIM card. We sell them with a SIM as well. There are SIMs available to buy in the shop.
And if you’re not sure what SIM you need, give us a call. We’re going to unpack that in a separate podcast. But they are brilliant on the road, Colin. They have two little suckers so you can stick them on the window. They’re powered by 240 volts, so a three pin plug or a cigarette socket, so when you’re driving, they’ll work as well.
Keith Gooden
We don’t call them cigarette sockets anymore. That’s not very PC. It’s a 12 volt outlet.
Matt Sims
Okay. It’s a cigarette lighter, isn’t it?
Keith Gooden
No, no, no, no.
Matt Sims
So you can plug it in the dash or you can plug it in the back where the TV would plug in. We were using them at the NEC show. In fact we use them at all of the outdoor shows for our little credit card machines to connect to and they’re brilliant. They’re really good. I think they’re a fantastic solution. No drilling in the van or anything like that. Avtex, of course, make the aerial that goes on the roof, as do Falcon, as do Maxview. There are lots of brands out there.
They need installing, and we had a whole episode on that in the past on motorhome Wi-Fi. There’s no installation at all – literally plug it in, stick it to the window, ideally outside, but it’ll work inside as well. And we’ve been sticking them up in the roof light of a motorhome whilst we’re parked in the showground. They work a treat.
Keith Gooden
Talking of the showgrounds, Colin wants to know if you’re going to the Norfolk Motorhome and Caravan show in July. He’s going on the Saturday.
Matt Sims
Brilliant. We are. We’re there all weekend. Colin, we’ll see you there on the Saturday. Come and say hi. And we’re very excited about going to Norfolk because Jude and I are heading off in the campervan straight after the show. We’re going to tour around the coast.
Keith Gooden
Lovely.
Matt Sims
If you’re listening to this and you’ve done Norfolk, we want to head a bit south, so East Suffolk. So if you’ve got some travel tips and campsite tips, I’d love to have them because that’s where we’re going.
Rebecca: “Any updates on C1 licence legislation?”
Keith Gooden
Rebecca DeLucca is in Nottingham. “Hi, Matt. Do you know how the proposal to give everyone grandfather rights is going? Last year the Department for Transport sent out for some industry feedback to gauge demand and feeling with their response to early 2023. I’ve ordered my first motorhome and need a C1 licence in time for when it arrives. Do you think things are going to change this year, making it unnecessary for me to have to go through the rigmarole of getting a C1 licence?” So we’ve covered this a lot, haven’t we, Matt? Has anything changed,
Matt Sims
Not to our knowledge, not yet. Not as we record this. So we’ve been trying to find out. I know the Department for Transport have created the proposal which has gone to Parliament or is going to Parliament. We’re still waiting for news. It’s an open jury, really, as to what will happen.
Keith Gooden
For people who don’t know, what’s behind this is…
Matt Sims
So I think this is about lowering the resistance to becoming a lorry driver. So it means that anyone who’s passed their test can now drive something up to seven and a half tonnes, which is what you and I can do because we’re old. So if you passed your test before 1997, we could get out of our little learner Mini and straight into a seven and a half tonne truck, arguably not the best step in terms of car ownership. But then an EU regulation was introduced.
From January 1st, 1997, if you passed your test from that date onwards, you are capped at three and a half tonnes. A four and a half tonne vehicle is no different to drive to a three and a half tonne vehicle. A seven and a half tonne truck is a bit different.
Keith Gooden
But it means you have to take another test to get that added to your licence.
Matt Sims
So already the rule for towing has changed. So that’s made the route to driving something with a trailer much easier. So I do think that this European directive of a C1 restriction will be lifted, and hopefully in time for when your motorhome arrives, otherwise you will be taking the test. And Sod’s law, they’ll lift it the week after you pass.
Keith Gooden
There you go Rebecca, I hope that helped.
Allan: “Can I tow on an A trailer on the continent?”
Keith Gooden
Allan Shrimpton has dropped us in a paper form at one of your shows that you’ve been galavanting around throughout the country. “Is it legal to tow an A trailer behind a motorhome in France and Spain?”
Matt Sims
I think what Allan’s referring to is a car on a tow frame, an A frame is often referred to as, where the car is on the road. Is it legal? Yes, it’s legal because it’s legal in the UK, assuming that the car and the motorhome or the towing vehicle come from the UK. The car in the UK is considered a trailer.
However, the Spanish and the French authorities don’t like it. And the reason is because the car isn’t effectively braked. So when you brake in a car towing a trailer, you get something called overrun brakes. The trailer comes toward the back of the car. It’s called inertia. And in doing so it compresses something that pulls the brakes on that makes the trailer brake itself as well. And then you stop braking and the trailer goes back and the brakes come off. A tow car doesn’t do that.
Keith Gooden
Yeah, I was going to ask you about that because I passed one on the road the other day. It was a big motorhome and they were towing a small car behind. I thought when you were towing a car, you had to have somebody in the driver’s seat. When you’re towing a broken down car, that’s what you have to do for, as you say, effective braking. So you don’t have to do that in every case in a motorhome.
Matt Sims
On an a frame, it attaches to the front of the car. You leave the keys in the ignition, so the steering lock isn’t on. And it just follows you like an obedient dog. It’s amazing. The wheels turn. It just follows you and you don’t have to have anyone in it. In fact, having someone in it is probably dangerous.
But on the continent, they’re considered a recovery device. So they are considered for that purpose only. And of course in your motorhome towing your car, you’re obviously not recovering a car. It’s your daily drive whilst you’re on holiday, and they don’t like it. So my advice is if you’re going to the continent, you take a trailer for the car which is properly braked.
Now, you can and people will come back to us and say, “But I’ve got a brake buddy on my tow car.” And that’s a device that applies the brake pedal when you brake. There are electronic ones, there are inertia-driven ones, there are a whole range of them you can buy, different brands and so on. The reality is that brakes in a car only work effectively when the engine’s running, because they’ve got a servo assisting the brakes.
When you’re towing the car, the engine’s off, so therefore the brakes aren’t very effective. They’re far less effective than a trailer with overrun brakes. So my advice is, put the car on a trailer. The downside to that – been there and done this – is when you arrive on the campsite, you’re then juggling three vehicles. You’ve got the motorhome, the trailer and the car.
And remember, you need to take insurance documents and make sure you’ve got a UK sticker on the back of every vehicle. So all the paperwork, MOT, V5, you need to have that for every vehicle if you’re going to the continent.
Keith Gooden
So is it legal to tow in A trailer behind a motorhome in France and Spain?
Matt Sims
Well, that was the question – legal? Yes, but it doesn’t matter what bit of paper you’re waving in that French copper. If he wants you to take that car off the back of the motorhome, you’re taking the car off.
Keith Gooden
Never argue with a man with a gun.
Matt Sims
Well, this happened to me. We were trying to go through the Mont Blanc tunnel and I was towing a car on an A frame and they made us unhitch the car. I said, “Why?” I refused.
Keith Gooden
Pourquoi?
Matt Sims
Yeah, exactly. We’re lucky there were two of us in the motorhome. So we had to pay two tolls, and I’m convinced this is what it was all about. We had to pay the toll twice, drive through the Mont Blanc tunnel, got out the other side, hitched it back on and carried on!
Keith Gooden
There you go. And another thing – momentum. Momentum, as you were talking about, you know those huge freight trains that have in America about a mile long? They spend the first 15 minutes before they set off reversing back the train so every one of their box cars is pushed tightly up against the next one. So when they pull away, they’re only ever pulling the weight of the first box car and then the second and so on. So the couplings move and they get enough momentum to move the whole train.
Matt Sims
I wonder how long it takes to stop one of those.
Keith Gooden
Well, if they’re a mile long…
Matt Sims
I’ll go back to the trailer that we just bought for the shop online. And yeah, you can feel when you’re towing that full of shop stock. We tow that on the back of a motorhome and when you brake you feel the trailer braking, but it definitely increases our braking time.
Get in touch with Matt and Keith
Keith Gooden
Okay, so that’s that’s done and dusted for today. How should people get in touch then, Matt?
Matt Sims
Really easily. You can get in touch with us on Facebook or Instagram or even on TikTok. We’re a big sensation on TikTok, my kids are very impressed. You can find us at www.motorhomematt.co.uk as well. And whilst you’re there, if you type /askmatt, you can record a question and make a contribution.
You can record your voice or you can just enter it on the form. And make sure you go and find this on YouTube as well. You’ll find different content there too which you can indulge in, and make sure you hit the bell, hit subscribe and then the gods of YouTube can tell you when a new episode is released.
